A rejoinder to Béla Egyed

Richard Rorty defends the charge of abdicating objectivity and critical rationality in his essay "Democracy and philosophy". In a rejoinder written in March 2007, Rorty writes that being rational has nothing to do with the attempt to reduce moral disagreements to clashes between abstract principles. [Turkish version added] [more]

Democracy and philosophy

Moral insight "is a matter of imagining a better future, and observing the results of attempts to bring that future into existence". In "Kritika&Kontext", Richard Rorty (1931-2007) outlines the anti-foundationalist premise of his philosophy. [Turkish version added] [more]

What does Nietzsche mean to philosophers today?

Excessively sensitive, anti-liberal, and irrelevant, or radical, prescient, and misunderstood? Six philosophers answer Kritika&Kontext's questions on Nietzsche. Their responses make one thing clear: Nietzsche still divides opinion. [more]

The dull decencies of normality

A debate on the contemporary uses of liberalism

Will utopian promises gain sway over the "dull decencies of normality" offered by liberalism in the coming century? Why is it that liberalism's most vehement critics come from within its charmed circle? And how will liberalism and its institutions respond to global social and economic change? Leading Canadian and American political philosophers in correspondence with Slovakian journal Kritika & Kontext. [more]

Without illusion, but with conviction

The pragmatism of Richard Rorty

"The goal of establishing a world federation, a 'Parliament of Mankind', seemed much more realistic fifty years ago than it does now. Then it was thought that the United Nations might evolve into something like a world government. Now nobody has this dream, even though the need for such a government has grown much more urgent", says Richard Rorty in this 1999 interview. [more]